Wasp

Multiple Entries:
  Wasp    wasp  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
Wasp /wɒsp/ (also WASP)

▶noun N. Amer. an upper- or middle-class North American white Protestant, regarded as a member of the most powerful social group.

– derivatives
Waspish adjective,
Waspy adjective.

– origin 1960s: from white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
wasp/wɒsp/

▶noun

• 1 a social insect with a narrow-waisted, typically black and yellow striped body, which carries a sting and builds elaborate nests from wood pulp. [Vespula, Polistes, and other genera.]

• 2 a hymenopterous insect of a large group resembling the social wasps in appearance and either solitary or parasitic in habits.

– origin OE wæfs, wæps, wæsp, of W. Gmc origin; perh. rel. to weave1 (from the web-like form of its nest).